Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
Thames Street, divided into Lower and Upper Thames Street, is a historic road in the City of London.[1] It is mentioned in the diary of Samuel Pepys.
The first mention of the road is from AD 1013 when the Custom-house was founded on the street.[2][3] During the reign of Henry VIII, the street contained the London residences of many courtiers, including that of William Compton, where Henry VIII allegedly met his mistresses.[4]
Little evidence of its history remains, in a large part due to World War II bombing and post-War redevelopment, and it now contains many office buildings, including the headquarters of the Daily Express newspaper. The London Fire Brigade's Dowgate station, which serves the City of London, is located on Upper Thames Street at the corner of Allhallows Lane. The most notable change is on the western end of the thoroughfare, which dramatically altered its course as part of major works of the 1960s, involving the reclaiming of foreshore of the Thames at Puddle Dock.
Today the busy A3211 route uses the street (prior to Thames Street being rebuilt as a major thoroughfare in the late 1960s, it was the B132). The London Bridge underpass marks the divide between Upper and Lower Thames Street, with Lower to the east and Upper to the west.
[edit] References
- ^ 'Lower Thames Street', Old and New London: Volume 2 (1878), pp. 41-60. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45074
- ^ The parliamentary gazetteer of England and Wales
- ^ history "lower thames street" - Google Search
- ^ Hart, Kelly (June 1, 2009). The Mistresses of Henry VIII (First ed.). The History Press. ISBN 0752448358. http://books.google.com/books?id=r6HGPAAACAAJ.
Coordinates: 51°30′35″N 0°5′15″W / 51.50972°N 0.0875°W / 51.50972; -0.0875
Annotations
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Thames Street, which can be seen running East/West along the lower part of this map http://www.motco.com/Map/81002/SeriesSearchPlatesFullb.asp?mode=query&artist=384&other=318&x=11&y=11 , appears to now be split into Upper Thames Street and Lower Thames Street.
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from L&M Companion
One of the most spacious of London streets, it ran from Tower Hill west past the Custom House, Billingsgate, London Bridge and Queenhithe to Puddle Dock (the modern, w. end of Queen Victoria St).Parallel to the line of wharves and landing stairs and connected to them by frequent short, narrow lanes, it was a centre for the commodity importers and always thronged with carts and drays. After the Fire, rubble from the burnt houses was used to raise it above flood level and to reduce the steep ascent to the line of Eastcheap and Cannon St. it was still, despite its widening, too narrow for the traffice seeking to use it. Now divided above and below London Bridge into Upper and Lower Thames St respectively.